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tv   Book TV  CSPAN  January 21, 2013 12:30pm-1:00pm EST

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they big americans to let them commit suicide. the treatment they received swayed them the other way and the guys i write about for example decided after a couple of years he wanted to be part of rebuilding japan. >> we are talking with craig smith counting the days published by smithsonian books. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> now the daughter of civil rights leaders martin luther king jr. and st. john's scott king desert rose in the life and legacy of coretta space king. she talks with books of america the publishers' trade show.
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this is about half an hour. >> bernice, who was scott bagley? >> well the sister of coretta scott king. >> and your mother. >> yes, my mother, so my aunt. he and my mother grew up in alabama together obviously and she later became a john notte professor. she founded the university in pennsylvania. so, a very lively woman. and unfortunately passed last year in june after completing the book. >> so this book is desert rose, the life and legacy of coretta
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scott king and the author is your aunt. when did she write this book? >> welcome it was a journey that began with my mother's request to write her story. at that time both of my parents were constantly being threatened she was confirmed she wouldn't be lost and wanted people to know she wasn't just the life of martin luther king jr. and mother of children but the role in the movement and very much an activist before she met martin luther king so from that angle as well as wanting to tell the story of the women in the movement because we don't hear a lot about the women in the civil rights movement. so 68 come april fourth she put the manuscript in the mailbox and that evening my father had been assassinated.
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she put aside the process and helped my mother out with us, the children for a couple of years and helping my mother with the establishment. at that time my mother said maybe i want to write my own life story. so she did that and published that in 1969. in 2004 having served from 66 she knew about the manuscript and still very much wanted to complete it. she said why don't you go ahead and complete the manuscript in 2004? and of course we needed to do some more work because a lot of that as a result a year later my mother became ill so she didn't really focus on the book that my mother passed and later my
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sister passed so it was delayed somewhat and by 2008, 2009 she started completing the book. she was working on it and she said people need to know more about coretta. martin didn't make coretta. the need to know coretta is a strong family background, deeply grounded in our education and how it has prepared us as women and the leaders and the fact that your mom was very much an activist in the movement, and they need to know about it. i'm working on the book, this book. i said well, can i help you, can i get it published and that is how this journey began. >> bernice, when did your mother began her activism? she was born in marion alabama? >> i ron ackley if you study
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history, three of the leading movement, ralph abernathy and my father all have lives in alabama. how ironic is that. my mother didn't know one leader after that. she no one was much younger but they didn't know, you know, that kind of stuff and it just brought it all together. and so, growing up there in rural alabama with a father who was an entrepreneur early on and he called lumber and he did open an assault mel by a white gentleman. the father's determination to stand up to justice and continue to move to really influenced her
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and that produced a lot of the leaders in the nation. missionaries came and educated the reactive and why am i here driven by the fact they got to college in a yellow springs ohio she was involved in the naacp progressive political party and the peace movement and was involved in the peace movement well in advance of that. estimate the public image of your mother is behind the scenes , quite yet -- what was she like as a person? >> she was very mission driven
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and the thing i like to say most is on the conventional level she used to tell me all the time for a woman to experience all that she's experienced right after the montgomery bus boy protest that is a time all of the emotions and the hate and hostility she had no notion of bitterness and all this love and understanding and goodwill and hope and faith and she just loved and didn't let that hinder her work so you can imagine we hear about our father being
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assassinated. i'm five, my brother is seven. little kids are sad he's taken away that way. you can really become very pay to fill the but my mother taught us about loving and that you're father left for this cause and gave his life. we don't hate people. and so i live with that example constantly throughout this book. >> where did you come up with the title desert roads? >> my aunt came up with the title because they grew up in harsh and difficult circumstances that segregated south, very difficult to see the drive. nonetheless should push fourth out of those circumstances and
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devoted dedicated, graceful, determined, a committed minded woman and that is how my aunt came. estimate what you remember about april 4th 1968? >> i don't remember april 4th at all. at the time we moved out to atlanta and so it was putting me to bed. the next day when my mother went to get my father's body and bring it back to atlanta she told me that, you know, my father would no longer be able to speak to me. he had gone home to live with
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god and god we went to the airport, got on the plane, and i heard this noise and i heard a bunch of breathing. he's grant be in a casket that he want people to talk to me. but i hear him breathing. no, it's not him. it later on i asked, is he going to eat? because i remember daddy being at home at the dinner table and reaching for the last onion and picking up salary. i remember that is in my mind. so i wanted to know how is he going to of eat and she said god is going to take care of him.
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a lot of light, a lot of cameras [inaudible] a time to do the eulogy they had decided to play my father's 1967 that he delivered at the baptist church that is the whole thing that talks about the justice when. they played that after. i remember my mom said we can't speak, i'm looking for my dad.
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but a child knows their father's voice. she just kind of put her arms around me and comforted me but that was kind of erie. expected your older siblings get it a little bit more than you did? >> definitely. my sisters were very close to my father. she found comfort coming home. they used to play basketball in the house and my mom didn't really like that. but he enjoyed it for her they talked a lot of it was a great loss for her pureed and martin carried his name. my brother a few weeks before he was assassinated got a chance to travel with him to mississippi because at that time daddy was looking to do a campaign and was doing a little recruiting in the
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south. so he got to spend that time which him doing the work that he did. so it was very traumatic for all of us in this way because i remember i a bad walk into his arms, she would take me out and say we are going to pay the kissing game. i'm happy daddy's home and he said okay where is -- she called them shorter spots. where is mom's sugar spots. where's martin, where's dexter to date i remember my spot being on the forehead. my mother seems to remember it being on the cheek. but i did the game, okay? so i remember the forehead. [laughter] how did your mother's life changed? >> get changed drastically. my mother worked side by side
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with my father's movement and in fact before she met daddy she prepares for that when they met and she had to wrestle but her real sense of mission to want to change the condition that we had to live under and daddy did, too said she decided to surrender and accept the proposals. so during the movement she had a wonderful opportunity to use that career, that talent to raise money. so between the freedom process time to time organizing. she still found time to take care of the homes once he was assassinated i didn't get to see my mother -- >> was she gone all lot more?
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>> the thing we may have done that didn't take place. the mothers and daughters, that didn't take place in the legacy. she felt that america needs to understand the very things in the movement so she built the center in atlanta and shea-porter her heart and soul into that and galvanized people to support it in began teaching through the non-violent institutions and the scholarship programs and people in the nonviolence and then her cost shifted as they raised the money the first day debt-free.
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so you can imagine she's on the phone talking to the prime minister's mind other was a nominal. we had a discussion. she invited a lot of people to the house from time to time and if you came over she was going to fix you some of her favorite vegetable soup. and then to tell you about this movement she would light up and got energy talking about the movement and excited about and i couldn't understand for her that was fulfilling because she felt
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this is the reason that my life has gone the past that it's gone this is what it's all been about. >> bernice did your mother and your family stay in the same house? >> after daddy was assassinated we stayed in the same house to get in fact the house wasn't purchased until 1966. my father had been influenced and he was struggling so she set look you have a wife and children and we have to have a place. they always talked about the fact that one day he probably would die a tragically. he said that's going to be my space. so he always anticipated that and new he knew so she made sure she brought that out and they were in the house until.
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>> or your grandparents on your mother's side or father's side? >> i visited my grandparents and alabama every summer for two weeks and i helped my grandmother with -- i helped her around the table setting up the dishes at the table and watching her cook and then alternatively my father said in atlanta i saw them every week. they were very influencing in my life. islamic after your dad's assassination or before did you have security around your family at all times?
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>> initially we did but for the most part, no. there was one time we had to have security and i thought to this is really bad. they sat outside in the car, but i didn't understand all of this other than that the atlanta police officer assigned to her. >> she is somebody with her at all times. could she go to the store or anywhere without people stopping her? >> she was speaking through but no, that's what i was saying. i never had an opportunity
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really to go shopping with my mom. the couple of times i can remember. she didn't do it a lot, we did a more generous as a family need it people would say can i get an autograph? she probably did more of those then she went on vacation. i will tell you one story i remember that i love. i went to the hallmark store a couple of times with her. my mother as busy as she was, literally first time two or
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three hours of the hallmark store reading cards making sure it was the exact card for the person. she was that all of. the first time i went with her she had a list. she would look at the list and said i want you to get a card for these people. so i went to look and thinking about the relationship she had with the person, the type of person she was and i would to get back to her, let her read it and i got it right two times. but most people that are busy send people just some card. she was a very thoughtful. that's how for many people there was an outpouring because she had touched so many people personally. >> irony and the fact that desert rose the life of coretta
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scott king is published by the university of alabama. estimate is real ironic. of course with mother being from alabama but much of the movement is concentrated in alabama but the irony is we remember george wallace standing and locking the doors at the university of alabama keep them from coming in and so sure you fast forward to the day. they basically told martin luther king jr. agitator, disturbing the peace now the book is about mom's life from alabama and dad's life together is now being published by university of alabama press. on june 11th is when george
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wallace locked the doors in 1960, i think 63. the irony is that june 11th is the same day that scott bagley passed. >> what is the last conversation that you had with your father -- with your mother? >> the last 1i don't remember literally my last conversation. my mother had a stroke in august of 2005 and from that point forward she didn't talk a lot. i don't remember the exact conversation. i remember the sunday before she had a stroke on tuesday, that
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some day i was in the bahamas and i called her to let her know that i've gotten there and was checking to make sure that she was okay. she had a minor stroke two weeks before. so always checking to make sure things were okay and i asked if she would sign this paper work because at that time we were trying to make sure that i got on hurt bank account and she had signed the paperwork, thank tha. she said i will give you a call on tuesday and she had a stroke on tuesday and the rest is history she said a few words here and there. >> what are you doing these days? >> i'm the ceo of my mother's founding and we are expending our educational platform to make
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it more available online as well as in the school system because our mission was to get non-violence across so that it becomes a way of life, and i think the only way to really do that is to go through education so that is the mandated system to bring about the community that he talked about by teaching people and educating them in the philosophy and the methodology of nonviolence and also developing the leaders. so that's what i'm doing and we are also in the process of building a whole new facility that will be very interactive so that when young people, it will be like a social experience. so when you leave it will be light you should be inspired and you will be educated at the same
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time. so why call let experience at the king center. steny is ebenezer still an active church? >> ebenezer is an active church. there are two locations. of the heritage sanctuary that's reopened in last april where people can come and is its right next to. mother made sure she placed and took that community it was a very thriving community for african-americans back in the early 50's and then for the demolishing any of the homes because of my mother's business with ebenezer sitting there and to say that those homes and other homes now that communities and a much better place now so
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ebenezer is historic there and the new sanctuary is very much a congregation that they are now building a community resource center named after my grandfather for 34 years to name the resources. >> we have been talking here on book tv with bernice king who is the daughter of course of coretta scott king. this is a book written by her aunt, even if scott bagley and it is published by bernice and an after word, desert rose the life and legacy of coretta scott king.
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>> one of the things we learn about the children of all cahal books and that kind of family dynamic is that a child like bill clinton decides to feel like he has the response of the day responsibility of regaining it with dishonor and so he basically sets out to be the person that is going to redeem the family. he's an incredible student, the front of his class, she becomes very active in the boys' nation which is a junior american legion, gets nominated to go to washington as the candidate for u.s. senate. goes to washington. he's already 6 feet tall. he strives to the front of the line when they go to the white house to see president kennedy. and then when kennedy finishes his speech, bill clinton looks forward and get his picture taken alongside john f. kennedy. he is so proud. he's so proud and he is already
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dedicated to the idea that he is going to be the person that is going to during complete honor to his family. by the age of 17 he's planning to be elected the attorney general of arkansas, then the governor of arkansas and president of the united states. this is something that everyone who knows him knows about and they talk about all the time. it's not from the university of arkansas, she goes to georgetown and from georgetown he becomes the arkansas candidate for the fallujah that goes to oxford. he is an incredible success everywhere but he cannot handle the sustained ongoing relationship with a woman. he's attracted to the kind of women his mother directed him him to that are the duty queens and attractive and that really is where his eyes had been. so this comes back to yale law school. there he meets hillary rodham.

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